Pantaleone’s, a pizza emporium in south Denver, is getting its moment in the sun April 11 thanks to a makeover on FOX network’s “Kitchen Nightmares.” And yes, they went through the drill — or grill — with Gordon Ramsay, the often-acerbic Brit who is the show’s advising chef. Roit!

The recipients of Ramsay’s makeover? Pete and Paulette Fafalios, the husband-and-wife team that run the restaurant. They can’t really talk about what they went through — that’s for the show to reveal — but the FOX promo describes the place as “stuck in the past.” Pete apparently wields a copy of a 1980s review to bolster Pantaleone’s claim as the best pizza in Denver, though the pie apparently failed a side-by-side taste test with store-bought ‘za when the makeover was launched in summer 2013. Ouch.

But there were some apparent perks for the Fafalios. Along with landing a refurbished restaurant, Ramsay & Co. flew them to a restaurant in Las Vegas to see how it’s done.

Here’s hoping the makeover turns out to be a winning bet for the family. You can watch the initial carnage, and subsequent journey to redemption, on KDVR-FOX31 on April 11 at 7 p.m. (For the record, the show opens with a post-makeover return to Amy’s Baking Co. in Scottsale, Ariz., which resulted in some head-snapping moments last season.)

Curious for a first-person taste of how all the work at Pantaleone’s turned out? The restaurant is located at 2120 S. Holly St. Phone: 303-757-3456.

But Wise didn’t have to think too hard when he was pitched a role in Chipotle’s new original series, “Farmed and Dangerous,” given that the show — which satirizes factory farming and promotes sustainable, earth-friendly practices — aligns with his existing values.

A snippet of Wise’s comments on the show appeared in a Denver Post Business news article earlier this week, but given how down-to-earth, colorful and charming the man was over the phone, we figured a longer version of our chat was warranted — especially since his Chipotle role isn’t the only food-related thing we discussed.

In honor of Denver, Batali said he plans to serve nachos with bison sausage, lamb-sausage meatloaf sliders, green chile taquitos with “rich beef from the magnificent state of Colorado” instead of pork, and “because both Washington and Colorado have recently passed pro-weed laws, we’re going for brownies for dessert, so everyone wins.”

And that afternoon on The Chew, Batali said this: “It seems that some of the disappointed Denver fans thought I was dogging the lack of soul in their town… they just don’t have a rich culinary tradition, like a city that’s much older… I love the Broncos too, I just hope they lose to Seattle.”

In last Sunday’s Parade magazine, tucked in the Denver Post, and on a Parade YouTube video interview, you said Denver had no gastronomic soul. Our state may not have the gastronomic giants and celebrity chefs of New York, but to say the city has no food soul — that is just harsh, Batali. May I remind you, the very soles of your Broncos-orange Crocs are made in Colorado. (The chef recently bought 200 pairs of the spongy clogs when the company announced it would no longer make that color.)

In case readers didn’t see it, here are quotes to put some meat around the issue, quoted from Parade’s YouTube channel and the magazine:

“Indianapolis versus Denver would not be a great one gastronomically.” – Mario Batali.Read more…

More than 100 people were at Lodo’s to cheer on Eveleigh. She put on an entertaining show, too, wasting no time in sabotaging her fellow chefs during the episode — could you cook a quesadilla using only a hair straightener? One of Leah’s rivals found the answer out the hard way.

Denver restaurateur Frank Bonanno apparently isn’t busy enough with his seemingly ever-growing group of dining rooms — now he’s moving into television, as host of the local series “Chef Driven.”

The chef behind Mizuna, Luca d’Italia, Osteria Marco — among other holdings — is hitting the road to meet some of Colorado’s top ranchers, farmers, distillers, brewers, bakers and confectioners. The show premieres Sunday Jan. 26 at 6 p.m. (MST) on Colorado Public Television (Channel 12), a PBS affiliate.

Five episodes will showcase Bonanno’s travels, where he’ll talk cooking and sustainable farming, using ingredients and sharing techniques from his sundry stops. He’s excited about it.

“As a chef, I make choices everyday about where I’m sourcing products,” Bonanno says. “It always comes down to quality for me. I’m continually amazed by the exceptional local products and ingredients that are available.”Read more…

Chef Leah Eveleigh, owner of Chef Leah’s Kitchen, a catering company that specializes in Filipino cuisine, will be one of three contestants on the culinary grid-iron on Jan. 19. If you’ve never seen it, “Cutthroat Kitchen” ratchets up reality cooking competitions to a new level — sabotage of your fellow chef is encouraged, if not necessary, to reign supreme.

Tune in to Food Network at 8 p.m. Jan. 19 to see Leah’s episode or go to the official watch party at Lodo’s Bar and Grill in Highlands Ranch, 8545 S. Quebec Street. The party gets started at 7 p.m.

As the husband of a woman, Annie, who describes herself as veganish, and as somebody who sometimes even uses the same term to describe himself (with a much, much heavier emphasis on “ish”; really, I like to eat vegan often, but it’s not a way of life), my family is familiar with Isa Chandra Moskowitz, a vegan cookbook author.

Hers were some of the first vegan cookbooks we encountered a few years ago, and we thrilled to the stews and burgers, the tacos and sandwiches and pastas that often were texturally meaty, only minus the ground lamb shoulder.

She’s got a new cookbook, called “Isa Does It,” which Annie calls her best effort yet, largely because Moskowitz doesn’t rely so much upon the faux cheeses which, let’s just be frank, usually taste like floodwater (yes, we unfortunately are familiar).

Rocca might be a veteran of the “Daily Show,” but like a slightly naughty grandchild, he treats his subjects with equal parts teasing and respect. When 94-year-old Clara Corrado announces at the end of this season’s first episode that “him and I are getting married,” the humorist himself laughs, genuinely surprised.

And when the tiny lady clutches her handwritten cookbook to her chest and says “these are memories, a lot of happy memories,” a person might tear up a little.

Clara Corrado and Mo Rocca. (Provided by the Cooking Channel)

The idea of the show is simple: Rocca seeks out grandparents for cooking lessons and conversation. After serving as a judge on “Iron Chef,” Rocca wanted to do a show “about why people cook, and what they talk about when they are cooking. Partly it was guilt abatement — I had this grandmother who made these great Sunday meals. I was very close to her but I never learned how to cook from her. I thought, ‘Why don’t I learn from everybody else’s grandparents?’”Read more…

Check it out, food-obsessers. You take pictures of lamb chops in restaurants, you Instagram photos of bartenders and their shakers, your Pinterest account contains a category called “sushi hand rolls” and what is your version of Twitter but a river of bacon and bourbon, of curry and pumpkin and milkshakes and prawns?

So here is what you do, starting tonight. You head to Boulder and submit to “Chow Down,” a film festival where all of the movies are about food. First up, tonight, “Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers,” a 1980 film about the history of garlic and introduced by Karen Beeman, the owner of WeeBee Farms in Longmont. Beeman is at the Boulder Farmers Market every year, selling her fantastic garlic. She knows from garlic. The film gets screened at Canyon Theater in the Boulder Public Library. The rest of the movies get screened at Muenzinger Auditorium on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder.

On Friday, Frasca Food and Wine owner and master sommelier Bobby Stuckey introduces “Somm,” a fun film about the arduous journey that some wine maniacs take to get the master sommelier designation. Following the movie, Front Range food mensch John Lehndorff moderates a panel with local master sommeliers Wayne Belding, Douglas Krenik and Sally Mohr.

The events include some food and drink, naturally. A wine tasting precedes the movie “Somm” at Bramble & Hare, one of the event’s sponsoring restaurants. And on Sunday at Shine Restaurant and Gathering Spot, check out the “Hummus Throwdown,” where different hummus-slinging restaurants from Boulder show-off their chickpea purees, and get put to the test by a panel of judges.

In a season that started with most of the chefs skydiving, the Michelin-starred Keane was a consistent favorite of judges and critics alike. He won $100,000 for his charity of choice, Green Dog Rescue.

(Other than Keane, Jasinski won the most money during the season, bringing home $35,000 for Work Options for Women, a Denver non-profit that teaches food-service and culinary skills to help women move out of poverty.)

But many in Colorado found themselves rooting for Jasinski, who worked for Wolfgang Puck for more than 10 years and has found success in her three restaurants on Denver’s Larimer Square.